E3 2010: Nail'd Hands-On Preview

Entering the fray of frantic off-road racing for Winter 2010 is Nail'd, for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. With an absolute focus on adrenaline and speed, Deep Silver brought Nail'd to E3 2010 for the grubby hands of the gaming press, and being a part of that crowd, Gaming Union got its hands on Nail'd to really put the game's claims to the test. With games like Sony's Motorstorm ruling the off-road roost, can Nail'd's claims of "no other game delivers the sensation of speed, danger, and sets pulses racing like nail'd" really be true?

Our demo of Nail'd took place on a desert canyon track, on an ATV "“ the game only features motor bikes and ATVs, with 14 tracks total in the game. Nail'd isn't kidding about the speed, as few portions of the track were flat, with most being either downhill, or jumps. Paths weave in and out as racers can really make their own fastest path through the track. Not to mention the train running over and through the track in several places, happy to plow through pretty much everything, obviously including the player.

Controls were very well tuned for the arcady, high speed racing, although the lack of an E-brake to do any sorts of slides or drifts is missed. Track design is fairly good, a nice balance between working with the high speed, and tricky spots and turns that work with sending riders over their handle bars. Boost, brake, steer, and gas are basically what the controls break down to, with boost refilling after landing jumps, and coming in handy when edging your way into the lead. Boost gates are also suspended in the air around the track, lined up with a number of jumps to make things a bit risky.

The game feels quite high-risk, high-reward as if a high speed, yet hairy lap results in no crashes, we found ourselves comfortably ahead of the pack in the race. However, it's just as easy to spill and fly into the cliffs, really screwing yourself out of any lead. Either way, the game generally looks slightly below average in terms of graphics for this generation, at least at this point in development. It's important to keep in mind that the build we got our hands on is in the Alpha stage of development, so we expect the graphics to be overhauled and polished, with gameplay hopefully coming at least slightly deeper. The game manages to get to the high speed, high danger it boasts, however saying it's unrivalled is a bit of a stretch.

The final game will feature 12 player online multiplayer, complete with voice chat, as well as four other modes, and of course, the single player campaign. The game looks quite promising from its showing at E3, so if you're an of-road racing fan, watch for Nail'd at its release towards the end of the year.